


Looking back from here, finally, I'll arrive soon

by justdoityoufucker



Category: Original Work
Genre: Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Major Illness, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28946676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdoityoufucker/pseuds/justdoityoufucker
Summary: Sachihiro had forgotten how cold Hokkaido was. It was not an unwelcome chill that gripped him as he left the airport, rolling luggage in tow. No snow was falling, but the cottony clouds obscuring the setting sun promised precipitation sooner or later. Hopefully later, once they were back in Furano and not on the road.“Hurry up, hurry up, Sacchan, we don’t want you catching cold here,” Kiyoko’s voice came floating back from where she was waiting at the car, the boot already open with her bag set inside, ready for his to be placed alongside.An original fiction piece.
Relationships: Okamoto Sachihiro/Uehara Katsurō
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Looking back from here, finally, I'll arrive soon

Sachihiro had forgotten how cold Hokkaido was. It was not an unwelcome chill that gripped him as he left the airport, rolling luggage in tow. No snow was falling, but the cottony clouds obscuring the setting sun promised precipitation sooner or later. Hopefully later, once they were back in Furano and not on the road.

“Hurry up, hurry up, Sachan, we don’t want you catching cold here,” Kiyoko’s voice came floating back from where she was waiting at the car, the boot already open with her bag set inside, ready for his to be placed alongside.

She took the larger spinner case, leaving him his duffel bag, and hefted it up into the car with the ease of a person long accustomed to hefting young farm animals and bales of vegetables. Wind gusted through them, and Sachihiro couldn’t bring himself to protest as she opened the passenger door for him. It was _cold_ , and the car promised the surety of heating.

“We’ve just got an hour ahead of us,” Kiyoko slid into the driver’s seat, adjusted the mirrors and set a gentle hand on his arm. And she offered him a familiar, warm smile, the kind of smile that Sachihiro had missed sorely in Tokyo, “go ahead and get some rest. We’ll be home soon.”

Arguing with that was not something he was going to do. The plane had only taken an hour and half, but Sachihiro was exhausted—packing, moving, appointments upon appointments for weeks. Quitting his job had been the least stressful part of the past two months. But it was over; he could relax and should relax while he had the time and ability to.

They left the lights of Asahikawa and Higashikagura to head south, and Sachihiro let himself lean against the window and drift off. Occasional lights from other cars dappled through the windows, woods and fields flying past. It was as though he blinked, and then Furano appeared; time passing in an instant. The lights of the city glowed in the distance as Kiyoko turned the car off the highway toward the fields that composed the northern part of the city.

The house was sprawling and relaxed, lights glowing from behind the paper of the shoji, the picture of a countryside home tucked in the sparse trees and the bare fields. There are remnants of a previous snowfall scattered across the fields like loose flour on a countertop; the view was so utterly familiar, so utterly that of home that Sachihiro could feel warmth bloom in his chest as Kiyoko turned the car into the drive.

He was intercepted as soon as he opened the car door, his father, Yori, dragging him into a tight hug before passing him on to his grandparents to be prodded and coddled. There was one missing, but Sachihiro could guess where his younger sister was. As if reading his mind, his grandmother pinched his cheek, said, “Akari-chan is sulking.”

“She really loves her brother!” his father laughed, “Akari-chan wanted to go to Tokyo to help you pack up, but she has to focus on school.”

Of course. Sachihiro couldn’t help the grin stretching across his face. They Face-Timed weekly and texted pretty much every day once she had gotten a phone; once he moved to Tokyo, she’d been down to visit a couple times over her summer breaks. Even though the gap in age between them was so large, they’d always been close.

She was going to be insufferable, now that he was home.

“Did you eat dinner? I’ll go get some heated up for you; oh, I’ll make tea, too,” Obaasan headed back into the house, Ojiisan following her at his usual slow pace.

Sachihiro was urged inside by his parents, who had already grabbed his bags while his grandparents had been fussing over him. The warmth of the house was a surprise; he hadn’t realized how cold he’d gotten. And—the smell, the way everything was the same as the last time he’d been home. He inhaled, exhaled deeply, and so much of the stress that had built up from the doctor visits and moving and work just _melted_ like snow under the warm spring sun.

Home.

He stepped into a pair of slippers and followed his father into the house, back to what had been his childhood bedroom and would be his bedroom yet again. It was empty, save for his own luggage and a low table tipped up against the wall. Freshly cleaned, though. “Cushions and futon in the cupboard,” his dad said, cracking the shoji to let the room air a bit. “I’ll let you get settled; if you don’t come to the kitchen soon, I’m sure Obaasan will come drag you to come eat.”

“Thanks,” he let his dad fold him into a hug again, lingering near the doorway for a few moments.

There was no point in fully unpacking or anything like that; he’d have plenty of time over the coming days to do so. Instead, Sachihiro pulled out the futon so it could air a bit before he slept, found some zabuton haphazardly stored under the spare futon. When packing, he’d made sure to leave his pyjamas and toiletry necessities at the top of his duffle bag, so he didn’t have to dig those out. The other thing he needed—a small, pink plastic bag—was in the outer pocket, as well.

Instead of going to join his parents and grandparents, he headed out of his room and down the hall away from the kitchen, where Obaasan could be heard talking to Ojiisan and Kiyoko. Akari’s room was closer to the back of the house, and the interior door was ajar, some up-tempo pop song playing at a low volume. Likely studying, or pretending to study.

Sachihiro hip-checked the door open and tossed the bag at his younger sister’s head; she was at her desk, diagonal to the door, and barely saw him in time to duck under the incoming projectile.

“Niichan!” she shrieked, lunging for the stuffed animals on her bed to pelt back at him before closing the distance between them, tackling him into a hug that squeezed the breath out of him. He returned the gesture, squeezing her so tight she shrieked about her head popping off.

“Brat,” he said when she released him. Damn, she had gotten a couple inches on him since last he’d seen her the year before, and her hair was down past her shoulders.

“Kaasan wouldn’t let me come get you with her,” she whined, releasing him to flop on her bed, a familiar pout on her face. “I wanted to go to Tokyo.”

“And absolutely not because you wanted to see your older brother, right?” he teased, nudging the stuffed animals aside to sit on the floor at the short-legged table that held more of her school books.

The pout deepened. “Mean. You said I could come visit during winter break this year, I was looking forward to it.”

He had been, too. The distance between him and home, between Tokyo and Furano, had been a constant dull ache since he first moved, and the visits from his sisters and his parents had been one of the few ways he’d coped with the distance and the change. “Well, I brought Tokyo to you,” he gestured to the pink bag, forlornly collapsed on the floor near her desk from its brief, momentous flight. There were more souvenirs, packed in his actual suitcase, but he knew that she had been wanting some Osewaya jewelry since they’d visited Harajuku that summer.

She gave him a suspicious glance, but picked her way through the scattered stuffed animals to the bag, shook the contents out on the low table Sachihiro was sitting at. The teddy bear jewelry clattered onto the table, and Akari gasped, her eyes going comically wide.

“You—you got— _Niichan_!” she threw herself around the table, pulled him into another tight hug. “You didn’t need to get me anything, you know,” she said, voice muffled by his sweater.

“I wanted to,” he ruffled her hair. Obaasan called from the kitchen, and Akari dragged herself away.

“You’d better go, Obaasan made beef curry.” She kicked a cat-shaped plush at him. “Before I go and eat it. I’m a growing girl!”

“Yeah, you are getting freakishly tall—“ he started, earning another plushie to the face before he ducked out of the room.

Obaasan was the only one waiting for him in the kitchen, which was a relief. As much as he loved being home, he had grown quite used to living alone. “Your dinner is on the table,” Obaasan said, busying herself with what looked like a batch of pudding. She paused, turned around before he could sit down, “Oh, Yori-san mentioned that someone would be stopping by to see you, so they should—“

What she was saying was interrupted by a knock on the door, Kiyoko talking inaudibly to someone, then the footsteps down the wooden hallway, nearing the kitchen.

“Sacchan!” A loud voice called, familiar and nostalgic, but not so much that Sachihiro could place it. That _goddamn_ nickname, too, it had to be someone he went to school with.

The man that appeared in the doorway of the kitchen was neither of those things—nostalgic or familiar. Sachihiro was fairly sure he had never seen the other before, but the excited light in his eyes and the curtain of sun-lightened brown hair were as nostalgic as the voice. He really couldn’t think why.

The confusion must have been apparent on his face, because the other man laughed and hooked a thumb toward his own chest. “C’mon, it hasn’t been that long! Katsurō! You’d forget your own precious kouhai?”

Katsurō. Katsurō; the name brings to mind a skinny kid in hakama, sandy hair pushed back from his face as he practiced hassetsu with a bow in hand. A teenager in a mussed school uniform, running to meet up with him at the school gate to head home together.

“No,” Sachihiro said, somewhat horrified, before he could stop himself. No way, there’s _no_ way this tall, well-muscled man was his small, skinny kouhai from the kyūdō club in school.

Rather than be taken aback or saddened, the other man’s grin widened, and he scooped Sachihiro up in a bear hug that, even if he tried, he would not be able to escape. Maybe he should have been mad, but he couldn’t help just chuckling in return. Katsurō, one of the few people he had considered a friend while in school, though they’d lost touch once Sachihiro had graduated and moved to Sapporo for university.

“Welcome home!” Katsurō said, finally releasing him.

Sachihiro gave him a dazed smile, fully aware that Obaasan was chuckling in the corner of the kitchen, “I’ll be in your care.”

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a new venture! i've written original fiction literally since i started writing, and i figure i might as well post it to be read by y'all! i promise this isn't the end to my illustrious career in fanfic, but this work in particular is something i've been feeling very passionate about lately.
> 
> updates will likely be slow, im still full-time in grad school but this is actually something i write during zoom classes so who knows kldjfslkdj;s
> 
> actual story notes:  
> *i've done as much research as i can about Furano so hopefully it's accurate! if it's not, let me know ♥  
> *the jewelry he got for his sister is from Osewaya Teddy Bear line specifically, and that's definitely not because i'm obsessed and want the teddy bear and honey jewelry for myself (i do) (i also do not wear jewelry so u can see my conundrum)  
> *the title comes from an english translation of lyrics from "fuyu biyori" by Eri Sasaki


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